Modern industrial plants are capable of mass producing all types of manufactured articles for use by other plants and by consumers. Smaller articles in particular having a low per unit cost are usually produced very efficiently. A limiting step in the process often involves container packing of the articles in a manner suitable for transport. Many manufactured articles are moved by a conveyor belt system from a production station to a packing station. Hand packing of the articles in containers such as cardboard cartons is cumbersome and, for the most part, has been replaced by automated packing machines.
Packing and shipping from food industry plants is particularly challenging since the products often must be frozen and/or hermetically sealed in a package prior to leaving the plant. Automated packaging machines for this purpose are well known. They represent a substantial improvement over antiquated hand packing processes.
Processed food articles, including meat products such as burger patties and sausage patties, for eventual sale to restaurants and institutions present spacial problems in the processing plant. The food articles are made in bulk by very efficient automated equipment. They must also be efficiently packaged in a sanitary manner for the whole process to be efficient. The articles presently are conveyed to a packaging station and loaded into cartons. Flattened articles such as the burger and sausage patties in some packaging processes are stacked in open-top cartons and shipped. Hand-loading of the cartons is very inefficient and can cause sanitation problems. Industrial robots are a much better way to package the food articles and have been used to a limited extent for this purpose.
Robots are available which are able to pick-up individual articles from a conveyor or a product accumulation station and transfer them into a packaging container. Robots used to package processed food articles, though, have not been fully satisfactory. Many food articles, especially frozen food articles are sufficiently friable that small bits of food are easily knocked loose. A sanitation problem is created in addition to an obvious wastage problem. The shape of many food articles also presents a challenge to a designer of a robotic hand. For example, picking up such commonly found food articles as round meat patties is an especially difficult maneuver for a robotic hand. Robots for this purpose are known, though they are relatively slow in packing speed because of a need for multiple pick-ups, multiple robotic arm movements and multiple drops into a container before that container is ultimately filled.
To be efficient, the food articles to be packaged must be moved to the general vicinity of the robot by a fast running conveyor and then must be precisely positioned for a hand of the robot to properly engage it. Properly positioning a series of generally flattened food articles which are inherently fragile for a robotic hand to grasp has proved very difficult. Known accumulators are not sufficiently precise in their article positioning capability to be of use with the more modern efficient robotic hands.
There is a need for an improved method of transferring articles into packaging containers for shipment to the customer. In accord with this need, there has been developed an article accumulator. The accumulator is capable of precisely positioning flattened articles. It is particularly useful with a robotic hand which is able to pick-up generally round flattened articles in a gentle, non-damaging manner. The accumulator is relatively economical to build and very efficient in its operation.